When it comes to Oklahoma’s new “show me your papers” law, statehouse leaders got exactly what they wanted: a federal legal challenge that provides a continuing platform to attack Joe Biden over border security.
To them, it almost doesn’t matter whether U.S. Justice Department and individual legal challenges succeed in blocking blocks the law scheduled to take effect July 1. What counts is Capitol poohbahs stood up to the big, bad federal gummint, by golly!
The xenophobes in their base will cheer wildly, of course. But Oklahoma taxpayers will end up crying – because they will foot the bill for unnecessary court battles over a law that threatens to unleash police profiling and does next-to-nothing to solve a broken immigration system.
But … but … but … Republican leadership sputters: The problem is, Biden refuses to fix …
Au contraire. Twice in the last three months-plus GOP lawmakers in DC derailed immigration reform efforts, including a bipartisan – yes, bipartisan – package whose crafters included Oklahoma GOP U.S. Sen. James Lankford.
You remember him, right? Baptist minister. Former Falls Creek church camp honcho. Once the face of 21st century social conservatism. Thrown under the proverbial bus by GOP colleagues at the behest of Donald Trump, who thinks border chaos could become Biden’s Achilles.
Politics aside, it’s a legal reality that border security and immigration policy are the federal government’s purview, not the states’. Sooner leaders tacitly acknowledge that as they throw up their hands and insist they have no choice but to take action because Oklahoma is being overrun by … uh, well, you know … others.
As Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond put it in a letter to the feds, “One thing that has been glaring over the last 3.5 years is that the Biden Administration is only ‘committed’ to subverting the immigration laws of this country. Your misguided demands ignore that Oklahoma has not only the sovereign right, but also the solemn legal obligation, to protect its own borders and its own citizens.”
Cue the eye roll. What actually is clear is some on both sides of the state Capitol’s political divide know this is as pure performance politics. So far, though, only Democrats are willing to call out the deepfake. Republicans have lined up behind their leaders who hope to cash in on the toxic mix of anti-Biden, anti-immigrant demagoguery to further their political ambitions.
“This is Christmas in May for some of my colleagues,” Rep. Annie Menz, D-Norman, told KFOR-TV. “This is exactly where we saw this going.
“This is clearly an unconstitutional thing … Our attorney general is one of the shrewdest legal minds of our time. He knows what unconstitutional looks like and what it doesn’t. This wasn’t an error in judgment. This wasn’t an error in not having the proper faculties and information at their fingertips. This was a very intentional political strategy.”
Arguably, Drummond’s and House Speaker Charles McCall’s full-throated embrace of the new law is especially risky given both are eyeing the 2026 governor’s race. While it is true hard-right zealots generally support the new law that creates a new crime, “impermissible occupation,” it also is true business leaders and police have joined Hispanics in opposing it – businesses because it puts many of their best employees at risk of racial profiling and law enforcement because it makes it even trickier to build trust in communities worried loved ones could be detained and deported.
Remember when Republicans embraced whatever was good for business? Or when Back The Blue was a bedrock GOP principle?
Not anymore. Sadly, fear of others is now animating Oklahoma politics.
